Jigme staggered back from his vomiting and half-fell against the worn picket fence. At that moment, Eddie appeared, bombing out of the lit doorway with his trademark briefcase swinging. Charging up to Jigme, he bared his teeth in frustration. He arrived at the sidewalk shouting “Gotcha!,” pulled up and stopped a few inches from his quarry, hugging the briefcase to his chest in triumph.
Ralph said to Jigme in Tibetan, “Should I help you now?”
“Dude!” went Eddie, noticing Ralph. “Do you speak Chinese? I mean, translate for me, I totally beg you.”
Ralph said, “Sure.”
Eddie raised the briefcase to the heavens and kissed it in thanksgiving, then put it down at his feet and said: “Look, it’s not like I’m fucking asking much, I’m not even asking, I’m begging people to take my cash, is that wrong? Am I a fucking criminal? Tell him.”
Ralph said to Jigme, in Tibetan, “I don’t care what problems you have, I need my money back.”
“Right,” said Eddie. “I want to start a guru business. I need, all I need, right, is someone to come and pretend to be the Great All-Knowing Monk from Fuckhead Monastery, like this little shit would be perfect. I’ll buy the goddamn clothes, all right? And I don’t care, he can say the Great Lord Gewgaw says he’s got to eat the ripe flesh of virgins, okay, just don’t tell me cause I got this crazy phobia of jail. Tell him.”
Ralph said to Jigme, in Tibetan, “Three thousand plus three hundred for not cutting off your head. You think I’m some American, too scared to cut your head off ?”
Jigme put his hands to his blanched cheeks and said, “No!” hoarsely.
Eddie went frantic: “Look! You little goddamn worm, I’m just about really sick of this. You think you’re the first? I’ve been to see every piece of holistic shit in Colorado, and all I can say is, the basic child’s principle of investment for return is fucking lost! Lost!” Then, to Ralph, “Look, are you even talking here, or is it Papa Brick Wall and Baby Brick Wall. Jesus.”
Ralph said to Jigme in Tibetan, “Wednesday. Three thousand three hundred dollars. If this man was not here, I’d break your arms right now. Look.” And from his satchel, he produced the aforementioned knife, unsheathing it in the same motion.
Eddie ducked and grabbed his briefcase, raising it shield-fashion. “Jesus Christ!” he said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Jigme slouched against the fence as before, stroking the bandana down over his eyes as if to gentle them. Thus half-blinded, he said, in a hoarse, practiced whine, in English, “Tell them I am dead. Tell them my father is killed by Chinese and my mother has dead from hunger in Lhasa. Tell them I am one fat ghost with the soul for a woman. No one should be unhappy for me. I don’t understand, they say to me. I need to drink more beer so I can sleep.”
Then Ralph lost his temper. He screamed in English: “You were born in India! Your mother lives upstairs! I’m not one of your college fucking kids who thinks your ass is sacred!”
A passing car slowed, allowing its headlights to become a presence, a harsher mood in the scene. It went by and then came to a stop some yards down Pine Street, idling there as if pondering.
Ralph said to Eddie, collecting his shattered cool, “I don’t know why you want this guy. You realize he’s an alcoholic?”
Eddie shrugged, his eyes following the knife. “People are into Tibetans. Like, who am I?”
The car that had passed, a silver Mustang, now reversed and stopped again level with Ralph, Eddie and Jigme. The driver’s door opened, and a small blonde woman leaned out. In the spot of brash carlight, her petite face was red. She screamed at Ralph, “What are you doing, still hassling him? Haven’t you done enough? Aren’t you satisfied?”
Ralph said in a cool, carrying voice, “Did you stop to give me my three thousand dollars?”
“I just don’t get how you can be so incredibly greedy!” she screamed. “Can’t you get it through your puny brain that Jigme’s sick? Can’t you comprehend that?”
Ralph grabbed Jigme by the knot of the bandana, as if it was a handle tied there for this purpose, and yelled, “Sick is nothing! This is dead! It’s dead as of ten o’clock Wednesday if I don’t get my money!” He shoved Jigme forward and let go, allowing the man to stagger forward blindly.
The woman leapt out of the car and ran to Jigme, pulling the bandana free of his head as if it were some vicious animal. She yelled at Ralph as she frogmarched Jigme to her car, “You’re evil! You think you’re some kind of gangster? You’re just evil, you’re evil!”
through which Ralph, in an auditorium boom: “Three thousand dollars, Jenny! Three thousand dollars!”
She wrestled Jigme into the back and jumped in the driver’s seat, slamming each door so hard the Mustang shuddered. As she pulled out, Ralph turned to Eddie with a rueful smile, as if to say, see how they try my patience.
Eddie stared at him for some time. At last he bent to fetch his briefcase, shaking his head. “Thanks a million,” he said. “You’re a real friend, Jesus.”
Ralph continued to smile.
“Yeah, just grin at me, I love it. I mean, you have to, you are obligated to at least buy me a drink, cause – just smile, great – cause, you know, I’m actually in shock, my mother just died? She’s being fucking embalmed as we speak, and I’m not just saying that because you totally failed to help me when I asked you like a human being. It actually happens to be true this time, which is what really fucks me up.” He looked back at Jigme’s door and said wistfully, “It’s like the boy that cried wolf. It’s like the boy that cried fucking wolf.”
“Well, I’m walking home,” said Ralph. “You can come with me if you want a drink, but I’ve got to get back and change my clothes.” He ticked one fingernail against a clay spot on his jeans.
“Yeah,” Eddie shook his head, “What are you, a mud wrestler? Honest to God, I weep for America.”
Ralph started walking then, and Eddie, after a pause to assert that he might just not, came hurriedly behind.